I used YUM to install XEN and a GUI front-end for it last night, but i don't know how to start it up. I was looking for the documentation on how start it but am getting quite confused. I guess I'm not using the right key words in the knowledge-base to find what I'm looking for.

I have a feeling that I will have to go into the terminal window to start it, butu to find the right command is losing me.

Does anyone have experience with this package at all? and its subsequent GUI front-end?

lex-ington wrote:I used YUM to install XEN and a GUI front-end for it last night, but i don't know how to start it up. I was looking for the documentation on how start it but am getting quite confused. I guess I'm not using the right key words in the knowledge-base to find what I'm looking for.

I have a feeling that I will have to go into the terminal window to start it, butu to find the right command is losing me.

Does anyone have experience with this package at all? and its subsequent GUI front-end?

Edit: I wanted to use VMware, but they are really expensive.

Xen requires a xen kernel so assuming you've rebooted and been given the xen option by grub and taken it...

open a terminal window and (as root) type:

xm list

that should give you a list of running domains (if it's working!)

you should just have one domain listed: dom0

to create a domain you need to copy and modify one of the example HVM config files in /etc/xen and create an image file for the hard drive the OS is going to sit on.

then start the domain by typing:

xm create FILENAME

if everything is OK and the windows CD is in the drive a window will open with the normal windows installer booted from the CD.

It's a bit scary the first time but not actually that hard. A couple of things though!

The xen kernel will break nvidia's binary drivers so don't have them installed before you run xen.

To run any windows domain under Xen you'll need a CPU (and mobo for intel cpus) that supports virtualization.

EDIT
never used the gui front end for xen but that's how you do it from the command line.